Page 94 of A Future To Remember

“Bud,” I whispered, trying to gently push his snout back down into the folds of my coat. “You’re gonna get us in trouble!”

But Eggy wasn’t having it. He barked again, this time louder. I began to get up. There was no way I could hide a barking dog. I had to get us out of here, back in the truck, where I’d wait there for the burger to get cooked.

As I was getting up, Eggy barked again, even louder. I got caught between trying to get up and holding him against me when Eggy started to squirm like a wild, caged animal. I stood up fully, struggling to get a better hold on the pup, but he wiggled out of the bottom of the coat to the floor before he literally ran away from me, yipping like crazy.

“Did you bring a dog in here?” the hostess yelled at me.

I grimaced, my eyes on Eggy, who continued to race away from me toward a waitress who was on her knees, her arms opened wide.

Eggy leaped into her arms and began to cover her in kisses, and as he did so, her chin lifted and I saw her face.

Reaching out to clutch the back of a booth, I felt like the wind got knocked out of me, but somehow…somehow…I managed to say it. I managed to call to her. “Abby?”

CHAPTER 19

Her

A week had passed since the shootout at Red’s garage. I was having a tough day.

The morning had started far too early, a nightmare pulling me out of the depths of sleep.

As I sat up in bed, I remembered it all. The clarity of it. The terrible feel of it being real.

And while I tried to collect myself in the dark, finally opting to turn on the lamp next to the bed, I realized that everything about that dream had felt more real than almost any of the others, and that could only be because it wasn’t a dream but a memory.

Quickly, I got up and retrieved the notebook I’d been using to help jot myself notes and journal whenever I remembered something. There were scant few pages filled out, but this memory was so crystal clear that I had to get it down quickly before it flittered away.

I wrote for the next hour, the account as detailed as I could make it. By the end, I didn’t know if I should show it to Cash or not. Two men were dead at my hands. Would he see it as self-defense?

But then I thought of the girl buried in that unmarked, shallow grave behind that cabin, and I knew that I’d need to come clean. I remembered her name at least, which was small comfort, even if I didn’t really remember mine. Her family was still looking for her, and maybe identifying her could help identify me.

I sat back and began to read the journal entry, amazed that the details were so clear after months of nothing but darkness. I’d written it in first person, past tense, like a story I’d written about myself, and that helped to get a bit of emotional distance from it.

I’d tried to recall it analytically, lest I get too close emotionally and scare away the memory, so I began with the first memory of that day that I could remember.

It was cold in the cabin. I’d been shivering so violently for so long, I was exhausted. The brothers arrived home. Wally and Wade. They were drunk and stoned—as per usual.

Wade came over to me, grabbed me by the hair to pull me up, and I was so rigid with cold that I remained in the fetal position. He dropped me, then walked over to my sheepskin coat lying in the corner, out of my reach, and threw it at me.

“Warm up, bitch. I can’t fuck you when you’re frozen.”

Greedily, I pulled the coat around my shoulders, reaching into the pockets for the leather gloves that’d saved my fingers from frostbite on more than one occasion.

Wade then sat down in the Barcalounger a few feet away to glare at me while his brother rummaged around in the cabinets for a bag of pretzels.

“We had to ditch your fuckin’ SUV cuz your old man’s been puttin’ up so many flyers,” Wade said. “He’ll think you drowned downriver now, which means no one’s ever gonna look for you again.”

I closed my eyes and fought against the despair that threatened to sink me down into an abyss I knew would turn me catatonic.

Heavy footsteps thudded across the floorboards, and I opened my eyes to watch Wally walk over to Ivy. She lay on her side, facing the wall. He kicked her—hard—and she didn’t move, flinch, or react. He bent down to pull on her shoulder, then stood up sharply.

“Yo,” he said while he hovered over her still form.

“What?” his brother replied.

“She’s dead.”

I closed my eyes as I learned that Ivy hadn’t made it. She’d been mostly despondent the whole time I’d been here, but I’d managed to get her to tell me her name. Ivy Nelson from a small town in upstate Washington. I couldn’t remember the name of the town. And I didn’t know the details of her abduction, but I knew she’d been here for at least a couple of years.